Number Seventeen: Shimmer by E. Catherine Tobler

Author:E. Catherine Tobler
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2013-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Metaphor of the Lakes

By Yarrow Paisley

FIRST DAY

Evening…I am very excited to begin a diary! I found it underneath an old Fireman’s Hat in the attic, its pages yellowed but blank and therefore most receptive to the “elaboration of my thoughts,” I think—to use a phrase I’ve heard Mr. Menders employ—and I have spent all of yesterday and most of today in search of a pencil. Finally, I have one, and there are three more where it came from. Since I don’t know what day it is, I’ll begin as if today were the first of all days, the so-called “past” being murky and inessential to matters at hand.

To be clear from the outset because I believe in honesty, I am no longer certain whether I am living or dead; certain details elude me. Having spent so many spans inside this house, it is difficult to know anymore whether the outside world is forbidden me because of my “agoraphobia” or because I am a ghost fated to haunt only these rooms. There is little doubt at all, however, that I am a girl, a very pretty girl, although I can’t remember what I look like… and even though there are things called “mirrors,” in which one might verify an aesthetical impression, I have not encountered one of those in this house. At least, I don’t believe I have.

My brother, whose name for now I must withhold, possibly because I can’t remember it, is definitely alive. I’m almost certain he is not a ghost. I have seen him eating things, not just dust devils and stray tacks, but real broccoli, the kind that is grown in a garden and reaped and brought in by someone whose job it is to secure vegetables for repast. I’m not certain who that person might be; it can’t be Mr. Menders or Mr. Scatt because they would be offended by any expectation on your part or my brother’s or mine that they should perform a useful service even on their own behalf. (This is not to condemn them, only descriptive. Should Mr. Scatt chance upon this diary, I hope he will understand that. By the by, do you happen to know my name, Mr. Scatt? I would most appreciate your information, perhaps you could write it in the margin for me?) I don’t think I have seen any person in this house, other than Mr. Menders and Mr. Scatt and my brother (who is either my older brother or my younger brother), in all the time I’ve lived here, which is a very long time. There are days, weeks, months, and years in time, I know that much, and each of these measures may be applied in some magnitude to the spans I’ve traversed in these lodgings. It is possible I was born here, and if I’m a ghost, I suppose I must have died here, too…which amounts to pretty much the same thing, perhaps.

But as I was saying, someone brings the vegetables, and Mr. Menders and Mr.

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